korean/delivery: i strongly recommend CHEOGAJIP

CHEOGAJIP 起家雞
No. 26, Lane 290, GuangFu S. Road
台北市大安區光復南路290巷26號

(02) 2773-0737

MRT: SYS memorial Hall

hours: 11:30AM-10:30PM, Friday and Sat until 11PM

$$ (about NT$300 a person)

website: Cheogajip facebook page 

visit reviewed: 

WHAT TO DO IF YOU'VE JUST come back from a trip to Seoul and had a lot of glorious eating of everything BUT Korean fried chicken (韓國炸雞 )? If you're me, you call Cheogajip for a couple of boxes to go and then dig up photos from your visit last year to finally throw up this post. A few years ago, when Korean soaps started to invade Taipei, I started to see cups of korean fried popcorn chicken pop up on my instagram feed from Chicken in Bok and Beer, Chimac 175, and in real life, at the now closed Mom's Chicken, at ATT4Fun and even oven baked versions from Oven Maru. 

Cheogajip is a two story shop near the SYS Memorial Hall MRT, near the alleys that house Wendel's, Mazendo, Brookhurst Seafood Bar. Most of the seating is upstairs, and suitable for big groups. 

Cheogajip's menu offers over a dozen different types of Korean fried chicken. Sweet, spicy, boneless or whole chicken with bone, it can be difficult to narrow down the options if you have never tried it and only want to order one. If you can only choose one, I would go with the Boneless Spicy Yung Nyeom ($410) which is both sweet and spicy, with some honey to balance out the spiciness. Even if you get the regular Yung Nyeom it still has a tiny tinge of spiciness, so it just depends on your tolerance. If you have zero tolerance for heat, then you can opt for a Half Half box which has plain original fried chicken and your choice for the other half. Be warned though, there isn't much else on the menu besides fried chicken besides side dishes like salad, fries, spicy rice cake and rice with seaweed, so don't come expecting a fuller Korean menu.

For my first visit, I rounded up a group of friends who were excited to have some chicken and beer with me, so we were able to try a variety of flavors. Sticky, spicy, sweet, crispy, crunchy 🍗🍗. If you've never had Korean fried chicken before, Cheogajip is a great place to start. Just make sure to bring enough friends to share. Thank you to Cheogajip for hosting us that first time. 

Cheogajip has four main flavors that you can choose to be spicy or non spicy. Plain fried chicken original, their signature honey "yung nyeom", crispier soy sauce "warak", scallion fried chicken w a sweet sauce, and supreme with a drizzle of mayo. You can order a whole chicken (with bones), boneless or wings, and for the whole chicken you can choose 2 flavors. Sides include seaweed rice, salad, fries or beer. That's pretty much the menu. 
My favorites were the spicy signature honey boneless (this pic) and the non spicy soy, which is the crispiest. I think I might switch it next time and try non spicy honey and the spicy soy.. Lol! Portions are huge and the chicken meat was meaty and tender.


The servers were quite helpful in explaining to us what the differences were. Only the Yung Nyeom comes boneless, all the other are a whole chicken fried, but if you're a wings lover, it's no big deal. The only difference is that you can eat the boneless version with a fork and not get your hands dirty, where the regular kind you ware going to get sticky.

Yung Nyeom - Sweet and mild
Spicy Yung Nyeom- Spicy and sweet
Warak- Soy garlic
Supreme Yung Nyeom- with a drizzle of mayo
Scallion- Scallion

Whole chicken
Boneless chicken
Wings

(top left spicy young nyeom, top right scallion, bottom left warak)

Warak is slightly less sweet than Yung Nyeom since they use soy sauce instead of honey for the marinade. It's slightly crispier as well. If you can't finish a whole chicken, you can order just Warak wings.  Each piece was very juicy and tender and such a guilty pleasure to eat. Everyone gluttoned out on korean fried chicken and left very happy. 

Spicy rice cake (NT$90) 

Korean rice balls (NT$80) - DIY complete with glove to mix up the rice and seaweed and make your own rice balls

Yung Nyeom boneless (NT$360) mildly spicy honey glaze. Sooo hits the spot!

Boneless Scallion (NT$380) 

Warak (NT$430) soy garlic glaze

If you need anything you just press the call button on the table. 

Since my first visit, I've ordered to go from them a number times. It takes about 20-40 minutes for them to get the order ready, depending on how busy they are, so you can't order from them when you are in a rush since they fry to order. Where else have you guys tried chicken and beer in Taipei? 

taiwanese/breakfast: RUI AN SOY MILK KING

RUI AN SOY MILK KING 瑞安豆漿大王
No. 69 RuiAn St.
台北市大安區瑞安街69號
(02)  2705-3377

MRT: Daan or Technology Building Station (about 5-10 minute walk)

Hours: 24 hours

$ (NT$60)

kid friendliness: Room for kids to sit and strollers.

Visit reviewed: 3/15/2017

[TAIPEI] Good morning! Tried this Taiwanese breakfast spot a few months ago, a block away from my usual spot on Fuxing, which has become a bit of tourist spot somehow with longer lines than I've ever seen in the years I've been going. 😂 So I've been slowly trying different locations to broaden my dou jiang horizons because we don't always have an hour to wait at Fu Hang. 

Rui An Dou Jiang Da Wang, or Rui An Soy Milk King, is a lot roomier and open than the usual Taiwanese breakfast restaurants, kind of like a large stall. It's easy to spot with it's bright red sign and corner location. There's a bit more elbow room and space to have conversations, and fairly clean.There's also a ton more variety than just soy milk and shao bing you tiao. Rui An also has pan fried buns, chive boxes, curry pastries and noodle soups. You can point and order since there are some ready to go on the counter. Decisions, decisions.. an array of choices for breakfast. What's your favorite Taiwanese breakfast order?

The positive of having all the goods laid out is that it makes it easy to grab and go when you are in a rush, and this spot is rarely crowded so you don't have to wait in line. The negative is that some things taste better hot, and they didn't reheat any of the pastries that we ordered when I took friends on later visits. I wonder if this place is happening after hours, since it's open 24 hours. 

I ended up getting a youtiao #油條 (fried dough stick) wrapped with an inside out danbing #蛋餅 (egg crepe) and a cup of soymilk #豆漿. Grand total - 55NT or about US$2.  I'll have to come back to try the bacon danbing and noodle soup next time! 

taiwanese/late night: i strongly recommend ZHI XIANG LIANG MIAN

ZHI XIANG LIANG MIAN 

芝香涼麵

No. 143, ZhongXiao E. Rd, Sec. 5

台北市信義區忠孝東路5段143號

(02) 2762-1666

MRT: Taipei City Hall

$ (Cash only) 

kid friendliness: sure

Visit reviewed: 4/11/2017

24 hour cold noodles (涼麵) means the option of eating them as a midnight snack or for breakfast! We had just left the Coldplay concert in Taoyuan, hungry and wet, having escaped the mess that was the post-concert flood of people trying to get home. Luckily, one person insisted on navigating us to a little shop on Zhongxiao East Road (a hop and skip away from W Taipei) that had offered up cold noodles, fish ball soup, shredded chicken rice and lu rou fan, 24 hours a day.

If you've never had cold noodles (aka liang mian) in Taipei before, it seems like a simple bowl of spaghetti-like noodles, topped with sesame sauce and julienned cucumbers. But every place has its own version of the sesame sauce- some with more soy sauce, some with chili oil, some with  peanut sauce.  I've even picked up packaged versions at 7-11 when I needed something on the go. Of course, it's much tastier with a tableful of semi-drunk friends, from a post-concert high, sharing a few bowls for less than a cab ride across town. Here, a bowl of liang mian costs NT$45-60, lu rou fan (braised pork rice) NT$35-45.  Probably some of the cheapest (and satisfying) eats you'll find in the Xinyi District. 

night market/taiwanese: i still strongly recommend SHILIN NIGHT MARKET 士林夜市

SHILIN NIGHT MARKET 士林夜市

MRT: Jiantan 

Glimpses from last weekend at Shilin night market. It was the first time I visited the relocated vendors since they had moved five years ago from the corner near the MRT Jiantan exit to a basement food court on Jihe Road. Anyone who has been to Shilin knows it's a sprawling, huge night market composed of many winding alleys, shops, street vendors and stands. So I guess it took me so long to check it out since there was plenty to eat from the street vendors outside.

But if you're looking for an air-conditioned place to sit down, you can check it out and don't wait as long as I did. Look for a brightly lit sign and some vendors on the first floor.

Once you go down the stairs, you emerge into a brightly lit, noisy, sensory overload aisle of oyster omelettes, stinky tofu and lots of people. Most of the vendors had signs filled with photos as well as an array of foods on display to point at. Each of the vendors have their own area to sit at, and I ended up just picking one that had an open table since they were all pretty crowded.

Multiple vendors making oyster omelettes by the dozen.

Sunrise Teppanyaki had a bevy of awards and customers.

Coffin bread stand served fat slices of bread stuffed with savory or sweet concoctions. I've actually never tried it before.  

Sweet and salty "da bing bao Xiao bing"

Stall number 20 is the one I ended up grabbing a table at. Bright clear sign, yellow tables and lots of choices. Staring down the menu, the owner handed me an English menu after hearing me speak English. 

English Menu and photos avail to point at and order from. Definitely order the pork braised rice, or the lu rou fan, and the ten bu la or fried fish cake. 

Front row seat to the chef's table 

The food comes out fairly quickly and the table full of food was NT$500. I would recommend everything except the fried tempura shrimp, it was the most expensive and our least favorite. 

Stinky tofu 

Braised pork rice or Lu rou fan-- I quite liked this. I always feel a tad indulgent eating Lu rou fan because it has a lot of pork fat and oil, but this was the right amount of sweetness and saltiness and cooked to an almost melt in your mouth consistency. I liked how it wasn't all fat, but had some ground pork mixed in too.

Our next favorite was the fried ten-bu-la fish cake. Slightly crispy on the outside and had a qq chewy consistency and slightly sweet. 

Be prepared to swim in the crowds on the weekends.

Taiwanese sausage in a sausage 

Famous Hot Star fried chicken g-pai. There was a stand here in the basement as well as outside and near the theater. Lines at all three vendors. 

This translation! 

Along Jihe Road are also a row of games for kids and kids at heart to play. There was one woman who was next to me who was shooting 10 balloons in a row, on the top spinning wheel. Bang, bang, bang, bang.. sharp shooter. 

This number toss game had the best prize-- Pikachu!

You can even find popular items from other countries, like Korean fried chicken, or the latest craze, the rolled up ice cream from Thailand. 

I always make my way to the street vendors on the other side of the night market, near the theater. I love the pan fried buns and the variety of food there. 

The Pokemon Go craze is real in Taiwan. Have you seen the video of the mob of people running in Beitou, reportedly to catch a Snorlax? 

Pepper bun

Shaved ice

I couldn't believe this shaved ice shop was closed!! It looked like it has been closed for awhile. Does anyone know if they relocated or just went on vacation? They are missing prime summertime customer dollar bills!